Shyness and sociability: Factor structure in a German sample

Cheek and Buss (1981) were among the first to address explicitly the need to differentiate between 'Shyness' and 'Sociability', because these two constructs do not represent the opposite poles of one dimension. In this study, the 'Shyness' and 'Sociability' scales developed by Cheek and Buss (1981) were translated into German and administered to a sample of N = 204 students. Results showed that (i) the constructs can be separated by means of a principal components analysis (PCA) in a German sample, (ii) scale intercorrelation is low like in the US sample, (iii) convergent and divergent construct validity is supported, and (iv) gender differences can be observed in both scales.